Working to improve the lives of Africans

I was very impressed with Eric Cantor and his presentation on AppLab.

AppLab, a Grameen Foundation initiative, builds solutions in Africa that enables people to use phones and other mobile devices as to improve their lives and livelihoods.

They have linked up with MTN's Village Phone solution to extend the reach of their offerings beyond the penetration achievable by working with handset owners. For your interest; Village Phone is a solution where an entrepreneur in a village invests in a phone and then resells voice and data, thereby creating a viable business whilst delivering a valuable service to the community. Applab is extending the data aspect of this to deliver additional services that are focussed on alleviating poverty, improving healthcare, improving agricultural yields and providing people with access to market information.

In addition AppLab has been training and supporting local entrepreneurs to serve as information and communication hubs for value-added services. This addresses some of the language and literacy issues that are based when delivery technology-based solutions.

An AppLab application that caught my imagination was a solution that assists farmers in identifying banana diseases and helping them to take corrective action once diagnosed. Where this gets really interesting is that they gather information (GPS and photo) from the farms in the region and then collate this data for the benefit of all farmers. Farmers are then in a better position to understand where this particular disease is spreading and whether they are at risk.

Great stuff!